Should glare be considered ‘unexpected’?

The sun getting in your eyes as you drive is not an unexpected emergency.

That’s what the Court of Appeals ruled Thursday in a case where a motorist struck and killed a pedestrian.

The driver had argued that he faced “a sudden and unexpected circumstance” when he was temporarily blinded by the sun. The court ruled that glare does not excuse someone from being found guilty of ordinary negligence.

One day last winter, I was rear-ended when I was blinded by the sun and could not tell whether a blinking traffic light was red or yellow. I stopped as a precaution. The light was yellow, and the driver behind me tried to stop, slid on ice and hit my car. (For a change of pace, we explained what happened to each other and were both quite civil about the whole thing.)

It’s an interesting argument: Should you be expected to be blinded by the sun when you drive? Does it excuse you from responsibility in an accident?

4 Responses

I don’t think you should necessarily expect to be blinded by glare, but it seems a given that it should be considered a possibility. Its not as if it were nighttime and the sun suddenly showed up out of nowhere. Other drivers have used similar explanations (bees, etc.) but they don’t seem to work very often.

I agree with the judge’s decision. The sun has been around a long time and rises and sets on a schedule. If you are always heading west into the setting sun at a particular time, then you should know to expect glare, based on experience.

It is unfortunate. I don’t quite understand why this man was charged but the lady who killed 3 elderly women with her car wasn’t. She committed multiple avoidable errors leading to the crash.